Did Bitwig Hire a New Marketing Person?

[BobDog]

Yea, no obligation. Would be a nice thing nevertheless. Communication is key in any relationship. Ghosting doesn't do anything.
"Toxic environment" i disagree.
Soon will make music again, thanks.

Toxic is basically anyone that disagrees with BillCaroll, that is his definition of toxic.

You, by disagreeing with him are now toxic.

[JHernandez]

1 do you know what a community manager is?

2 I hope you agree with me that the majority of forum users here are actually good people?


3 Do you really think that an absolute lack of roadmap transparency is a good thing?

1: Does Bitwig have a community manager? I have no idea.

2: Never met 'em, no clue.

3: Yes, I don't like promises but I think that's irrelevant because that's not what I paid for. imo decisions on any product should be based on what it offers. In the case of Bitwig I payed for: the DAW + content, 12 months of semi-random possible updates, and some tech support. That's what I got. Fair trade.

I didn't buy an imaginary product that may or may not exist in the future that includes an imaginary relationship with good people. That would be quite the set up for possible, likely, disappointment.

My "relationship" with all companies is I give them money, they give me the product as described and hopefully we're done. Fair trade. If I like the product I may buy another product (in this case updates) from the company again.

[pdxindy]

So if you agree on 1 and 2, there's no reason to NOT communicate. Why should the good, kind, and constructively arguing majority be completely abandoned?

If Bitwig doesn't talk to you, you are not abandoned. Abandoned assumes there was some personal connection that ended, like a friend of family member who stopped talking to you. Your choice of that word shows you are, in your mind, treating a company who you bought a product from like a personal relationship. It's just not the case.

[pdxindy]

3 Do you really think that an absolute lack of roadmap transparency is a good thing? To the extent that you don't even know IF a feature request which got sent in via email by many people since several years (Gridlines behind clips in arrangement view, piano roll issues, etc) will ever be CONSIDERED to be implemented, or will not be implemented within the next 5 years? Or would a clear "no" or "not within the next 5 years" not be fair to hear for paying customers, in order to make a based decision to look for another software?

Bitwig has no obligation to tell any of us what they are working on. It is not even the slightest bit unfair that they don't publish a roadmap.

That they say nothing about future plans is, imo, neither a good thing or bad thing. They are free to choose what to do and it is none of my business.

[nowiamone]

Yea, no obligation. Would be a nice thing nevertheless. Communication is key in any relationship. Ghosting doesn't do anything.
"Toxic environment" i disagree.
Soon will make music again, thanks.

Toxic is basically anyone that disagrees with BillCaroll, that is his definition of toxic.

You, by disagreeing with him are now toxic.

Well, it seems that some people define "toxic" so broadly, that it includes even the slightest disagreement or a feature request which is asked for with passion.

1: Does Bitwig have a community manager? I have no idea.

I don't know really. At least not someone who is active in forums/does polls/surveys, etc.
But they have a REALLY friendly support email, which is awesome.

My "relationship" with all companies is I give them money, they give me the product as described and hopefully we're done. Fair trade.

Absolutely. And since Bitwig describes itself as "Bitwig Studio is the single solution for realizing any musical idea across every stage of production.", that means it is absolutely legit for some people to kindly ask for some basic DAW functions to get improved, like fixing piano roll issues to name one, in order for the product to be "as described". Basic communication about whether certain issues will be fixed someday would also be a 'fair trade' of reciprocal feedback.

If Bitwig doesn't talk to you, you are not abandoned. Abandoned assumes there was some personal connection that ended, like a friend of family member who stopped talking to you. Your choice of that word shows you are, in your mind, treating a company who you bought a product from like a personal relationship. It's just not the case.

You seem very hung up on terminology. Let's clarify:
There IS a relationship between a company and its customers. And we hope that relationship is good. Usually/Generally communication is key in ANY form of relationship. Relationships of any form, including business relations, personal relations, etc. they all go downhill when there's zero communication over the years. Communication is connection. When companies make decisions which are disconnected from the community, things go wrong. As we have witnessed.

I m not refering to a romantic relationship, obviously.. Although i have seen passionate musician hug their hardware synthesizers, haha

By the way: "To be abandonded by the company/developer" is in fact used terminology, not only in the realm of romanticism, but software. You can have a read here, if interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abandonware

Bitwig has no obligation to tell any of us what they are working on. It is not even the slightest bit unfair that they don't publish a roadmap.

Yes, absolutely no obligation. It's not unfair, yes. But maybe a roadmap or surveys/polls etc. are fair in the sense of "nice, beautiful".

They are free to choose what to do and it is none of my business.

It surely is of your business, in the sense that you care about Bitwig, and you're a very active user. But unlike me, you're happy with the "end result", and happy without the slightest fragment of a roadmap, which is fine.
I personally see many positive sides of being more involved with a community, communicating and fine-adjusting feature requests with moderated Forums (as Loopy pro does). Hence my wish for more openness: I see great potential in that, and the pros outweighing the cons by far.

[duanosforde]

Yea, no obligation. Would be a nice thing nevertheless. Communication is key in any relationship. Ghosting doesn't do anything.

It's not a relationship...

funny, I was talking with a client at work about this just yesterday

customer relationship management (CRM) is probably the most important aspect of sales and gaining/retaining a loyal customer base these days. The report below says having a good relationship is the essence of a successful business). Amazon is a really good example this. There is so much competition, so many choices, companies need to go out of their way to befriend customers, make them feel heard and part of a community. if interested in staying in business for the long run, It is very much a relationship .

Good reads below........

https://www.ripublication.com/gjfm16/gjfmv8n2_05.pdf

https://www.expertmarket.com/uk/crm-sys ... case-study

[pdxindy]

There IS a relationship between a company and its customers. And we hope that relationship is good. Usually/Generally communication is key in ANY form of relationship. Relationships of any form, including business relations, personal relations, etc. they all go downhill when there's zero communication over the years. Communication is connection. When companies make decisions which are disconnected from the community, things go wrong. As we have witnessed.

We have very different views on these things.

When I bought my car, I don't consider myself to have a relationship with the car manufacturer and don't give the slightest thought to the company. Same with buying a refrigerator, hot water heater, power tools and so on.

I have a number of Elektron machines. I don't consider that I have a relationship with them either. I never think about Elektron the company or expect any communication from them. Same with my other hardware like Moog and Waldorf synths, audio interface, computer and monitor and so on.

For software, I've bought the Affinity Suite, Bitwig, some plugins, various other apps for writing and drawing, etc.

In all the above cases, I don't care at all whether a company communicates with me. In fact, I prefer they don't cause it would take up time I would rather put elsewhere. When a company releases a new product, if it interests me I will look into it and decide whether I want to purchase. Sometimes I have sent questions to a company about their product before purchase.

When I was still working (photography and graphic design), I had business relationships with clients and with other companies who sub-contracted work to me. Yes, in those cases, some communication was important and yes, those were a form of relationship.

But buying stuff? No... that's not a relationship. When I go to the store to buy a new shirt or some shoes, really? If I had a relationship with every company I ever bought something from that would be horrible. I'd never get anything done cause all my time would be spent attending to all those 'relationships'! No thanks!

[pdxindy]

funny, I was talking with a client at work about this just yesterday

customer relationship management (CRM) is probably the most important aspect of sales and gaining/retaining a loyal customer base these days. The report below says having a good relationship is the essence of a successful business). Amazon is a really good example this. There is so much competition, so many choices, companies need to go out of their way to befriend customers, make them feel heard and part of a community.

See, that's f*cked up. None of those companies are my friends. If I were suddenly homeless, not a one of them would offer to let me sleep in their spare bedroom while I figure my sh*t out.

That marketing stuff is grotesque. Maybe businesses have to engage is such unethical deception these days, but I want none of it and don't want to encourage it.

And the reason it works is cause so many people are lonely and don't have enough real social nourishment and friendship so they are susceptible to that sort of manipulation and the pretense of community.

[duanosforde]

funny, I was talking with a client at work about this just yesterday

customer relationship management (CRM) is probably the most important aspect of sales and gaining/retaining a loyal customer base these days. The report below says having a good relationship is the essence of a successful business). Amazon is a really good example this. There is so much competition, so many choices, companies need to go out of their way to befriend customers, make them feel heard and part of a community.

See, that's f*cked up. None of those companies are my friends. If I were suddenly homeless, not a one of them would offer to let me sleep in their spare bedroom while I figure my sh*t out.

That marketing stuff is grotesque. Maybe businesses have to engage is such unethical deception these days, but I want none of it and don't want to encourage it.

And the reason it works is cause so many people are lonely and don't have enough real social nourishment and friendship so they are susceptible to that sort of manipulation and the pretense of community.

Yep, people/customers need that these days, it is unfortunate but a reality. i'm not going into the politics or philosophy of it all, but if you think about it, it makes sense, we live in the most connect yet disconnected time in history.

[nowiamone]

" I had business relationships with clients and with other companies who sub-contracted work to me. Yes, in those cases, some communication was important and yes, those were a form of relationship.

But buying stuff? No... that's not a relationship."

"Buying stuff" is like the core definition of a business relationship...
I understand that you somehow really dislike the word relationship when it comes to the relationship between you and companys you bought stuff from. But you won't be able to deny that at the very least you enter a Business relationship with the company, when buying stuff.
Your personal choice to put no thought at all into who the company really is, doesn't fit your concerns about amazon.
I absolutely agree with you, that manipulative marketing tactics, like building a false sense of community, are despicable. But if you don't want to support such companys like amazon, i'm certain you as a consumer will inform yourself, before giving them money, instead of not "give a slightest thought to the company" as a general rule of life.

"If I had a relationship with every company I ever bought something from that would be horrible. I'd never get anything done cause all my time would be spent attending to all those 'relationships'!"

You have a relationship with every company you ever bought something from, at the very least a business relationship. I can't follow your thought process of why that implies you having to "attend" to anything, or having less time.
Even if Bitwig would have a gigantic huge open roadmap in this forum, you could just ignore it and live happily without any information coming from their side towards you.

[JHernandez]

1: Does Bitwig have a community manager? I have no idea.

I don't know really. At least not someone who is active in forums/does polls/surveys, etc.
But they have a REALLY friendly support email, which is awesome.

My "relationship" with all companies is I give them money, they give me the product as described and hopefully we're done. Fair trade.

Absolutely. And since Bitwig describes itself as "Bitwig Studio is the single solution for realizing any musical idea across every stage of production.", that means it is absolutely legit for some people to kindly ask for some basic DAW functions to get improved, like fixing piano roll issues to name one, in order for the product to be "as described". Basic communication about whether certain issues will be fixed someday would also be a 'fair trade' of reciprocal feedback.

But it is a single solution for realizing any musical idea . . . (marketing talk, I'm sure you're aware) that's as subjective as "basic DAW functions", and they were kind enough to provide a means of making feature request for free. They just don't have to honor our feature request because they didn't sell us that. Now broken stuff/bugs on the hand they should have to fix, we paid for all this: https://www.bitwig.com/feature-list/
https://www.bitwig.com/buy/

[Jac459]

See, that's f*cked up. None of those companies are my friends. If I were suddenly homeless, not a one of them would offer to let me sleep in their spare bedroom while I figure my sh*t out.

That marketing stuff is grotesque. Maybe businesses have to engage is such unethical deception these days, but I want none of it and don't want to encourage it.

And the reason it works is cause so many people are lonely and don't have enough real social nourishment and friendship so they are susceptible to that sort of manipulation and the pretense of community.

Non-sense ! These companies are all my friends. And the reason why Apple is still not using USB C for their phones generating this way millions of tons of waste of unused cables is certainly very important and for my own good, I am just not smart enough to see it...

More seriously, I agree with you and moreover, small companies like Bitwig can't do what is done by Amazon or Apple, we have to accept that. I prefer them to concentrate their small resources on development of their tools and not engaging in KVR or any other social media.
We shoudn't forget that Bitwig has a very good certified trainer program and they certainly get very good "educated" and constructive feedbacks from them already.

[BobDog]

funny, I was talking with a client at work about this just yesterday

customer relationship management (CRM) is probably the most important aspect of sales and gaining/retaining a loyal customer base these days. The report below says having a good relationship is the essence of a successful business). Amazon is a really good example this. There is so much competition, so many choices, companies need to go out of their way to befriend customers, make them feel heard and part of a community.

See, that's f*cked up. None of those companies are my friends. If I were suddenly homeless, not a one of them would offer to let me sleep in their spare bedroom while I figure my sh*t out.

That marketing stuff is grotesque. Maybe businesses have to engage is such unethical deception these days, but I want none of it and don't want to encourage it.

And the reason it works is cause so many people are lonely and don't have enough real social nourishment and friendship so they are susceptible to that sort of manipulation and the pretense of community.

Yep, people/customers need that these days, it is unfortunate but a reality. i'm not going into the politics or philosophy of it all, but if you think about it, it makes sense, we live in the most connect yet disconnected time in history.

This is absolutely spot on, I'm at the moment having to deal with Marks & Spencer in the UK, now this is a company that actually does feel like part of the family, I'm getting on a bit and still remember being dragged around these stores as a small child, they have been around for ever.

I ordered something from their website, it has not been delivered, I have paid for it. You think it would be simple to get my money back.

The web site does not allow you to do this.

The chat bot will put you through to a human after about 30 minutes wait, the human does not have the power to refund me.

There is a phone number that puts you in a queue, I tried and gave up after 45 minutes of waiting.

There is no email to use.

So I have had to open a dispute with the payment company.


At least with BW if you email them they always answer after a few days, might not be the answer you want but at least they answer.

[pdxindy]

"Buying stuff" is like the core definition of a business relationship...
I understand that you somehow really dislike the word relationship when it comes to the relationship between you and companys you bought stuff from. But you won't be able to deny that at the very least you enter a Business relationship with the company, when buying stuff.

To me, a business relationship is when I have a business and you have a business and we engage in various transactions.

Me walking into the store and buying a pen does not mean I have a relationship with the pen manufacturer. They will never even know I exist.

[Jac459]

"Buying stuff" is like the core definition of a business relationship...
I understand that you somehow really dislike the word relationship when it comes to the relationship between you and companys you bought stuff from. But you won't be able to deny that at the very least you enter a Business relationship with the company, when buying stuff.

To me, a business relationship is when I have a business and you have a business and we engage in various transactions.

Me walking into the store and buying a pen does not mean I have a relationship with the pen manufacturer. They will never even know I exist.

You don't have a relationship with the manufacturer but generally you will have with the store selling it to you. And the way it does it will generally influence your willingness to come back.

I think it isn't black or white (as always). We can't deny that Customer Relationship Management exist. You will go more often to a restaurant where the owners recognise you and say hello than on one where you are treated like a new customer even if you come everyday. In my local coffee shop, I don't say anything, I am just asked if "as usual". It is a microscopic service, but I do like that.

If we draw a parrallel with Bitwig, first they both create and sell the product to us, second they have an upgrade plan. As there is an upgrade plan, people generally feel they have a say on the roadmap in general because they paid for a future services (honestly if it was me, I would never do that lol).
In my own view, the upgrade plan doesn't commit ANYTHING to us and we should act as as adult and buy the upgrade plan only either if :
- the upgrade plan provide us immediately the value we are paying for (like a new version already available and that we want)
- we want to support the developers by giving them a bit of money in advance of the service
- we like to gamble on the future and we are ready to loose.

If people buy the upgrade plan because they feel they will own the developers this way and will decide the roadmap, I think it is their own problem and they will for sure be disappointed.